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Books, Boarding School, and Beats

“Often enough, the best position for a trout to see and catch these active nymphs is near the river bed”   …….. ”It is useless to try to tempt such a fish with an artificial nymph fished just below the surface, or to cast a dry fly over him”  The words of Frank Sawyer, from the book Frank Sawyer, Man of the Riverside, compiled by Sidney Vines. Frank Sawyer was famous for, amongst other things, The Pheasant Tail Nymph, which you can watch the man himself tying in this link. Sawyer’s book “Keeper of the Stream was first published in 1952.

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15 October 2018

The culture of repair meets the culture of sales

Me:  Hello Shiraz! Shiraz:  Bob. Me (puzzled): Shiraz….? Shiraz:  Bob. Me (incredulous):  You can’t be called Bob…you are wearing a taqiyah…Bob’s don’t wear those! You don’t get Muslims called Bob! Shiraz:  No…you Bob. Me:…Ah!…No, I’m Andrew. Shiraz:  Oh!  Hello Andrew..how are you? Me: Hello Shiraz! I was in Shiraz’s shop arranging a repair to my twenty nine year old fishing kit bag. Actually it’s a South African army  “balsak”…that’s how I know how old it is…it was a special gift from Magnus Malan. All I had to do was give him two years of my life. “Ja…you guys went off

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15 March 2018

Serendipitous connections

Back in August of 2016 I wrote this piece about a certain Capt HA Cartwright, his old fishing tackle which I happened to be keeping, and what I had discovered about the man on the internet. My fascination with the story didn’t end there, and in the winter of 2017, I read the story of Fritz Kolbe…”Betraying Hitler”. I read with intense interest the snippets in there in which the meeting between Kocherthaler and Cartwright in Berne was mentioned.  I had no sooner turned the last page of that fascinating story when I received an e-mail, out of the blue,

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18 January 2018

Rest days

I don’t know about you, but after a day which typically involves say 2 hrs in the car, 8 hrs on a river, and traversing say 7 to 12 kms of rough territory, I need a break.  Call me soft, but at least half of that “traversing” involves getting in and out of the stream, boulder hopping, and  scrambling, and it is normally with a pack on my back that is heavier than it need be.  To add to that, I may have fished for 8 hrs and driven for 2, but the number of hours between when I left

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18 October 2017

Mesmerised

Tiny wavelets in the sun. Wind pushing water. Ever rolling ripples. Running , extending out over the surface, on and on. Never ending, and each the same. Sunlight twinkles at the crest of those crossing a sunny line out beyond the cattails. Cattails extending to meet the wavelets, and brushing against the fabric of my waders. The water around me ice cold and gin clear, and lapping as a sideshow to the wavelets. My eyes divert from my side, back out over the water. Again. I search for the dry fly. Where was that spot. It’s all the same out

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8 August 2017
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